Poker Rules: 7 Card Stud

Introduction: Playing 7 card stud is a fun and easy game that doesn't involve much calculation. Stud also allows for great control over your cards but often limits your ability to hide great hands.

Basic Game Rules: In Stud the goal is to make the best possible 5 card combination of a total of 7 cards.

The Betting: In the beginning, everybody is dealt two cards down and one card up. Basically, after the cards have been dealt, you will see everybody holding 2 cards facing down and one facing up. The player with the lowest card will be asked to post the "Blind". The "Blind" or Blind Bet is basically a motivation to get people playing, otherwise everyone else could be throwing their hands away before the game started. Everybody will now be asked to call, or bet. A call means that you will match the amount/per player put into the pot so far. This means that if nobody has raised the blinds you will be able to play for the minimum, which is basically the blind bet, as long as nobody behind you bets more money, which would mean that you would also be asked to match it to see the next card. As an example if you are playing 1/5 limit 7 card stud, your blind will be $1, so the minimum amount to play with, after you have seen the initial 3 cards will be $1. If one of the players ahead of you raises the blind by $3, you will have to match $3+$1 = $4 to play (or fold). Betting continues within one round until everybody has just called or checked. So if the first player bets $3 on top of the $1 and everybody calls at a table with 9 players there would be a total of $36 in the pot. After this procedure, the next card would be dealt. Each round after the first round, there will be only one card dealt. the first 3 cards will be face up and the final card again face down, so that in the end if you are still in the game, you should see 4 cards face up in front of everyone and 3 cards face down in front of you. When the last round of betting is finished, the cards are turned over and compared. The winner takes the pot - The dealer is usually tipped as well.

Besides the regular call, or bet options there are also the options to check or re-raise. If there hasn't been a bet ahead of you, you can always "check", which means that you also don't want to put more money. With this option you stay in the game, but you don't put more money down. If everyone behind you also checks, the next card is dealt out practically "for free".

If you believe you have a strong hand (or want to make people believe you do) you can re-raise someone elses bet after they have bet a certain amount. Careful here, this can get costly. Also make sure that if you want to re-raise you will have to re-raise the minimum re-raise is of what has been bet before and again the maximum is $5 for our example in 1/5 limit 7 Card Stud. Also make sure you post the entire amount at once, the dealer will not allow a call, and then a bet but only a re-raise. If you want to be sure you put the right amount you can always say "re-raise $5" or "re-raise $2", then the dealer will help you and you will have more time.

Now to the most important part of the Rules:

Rank of Cards:(Lare Letters are the cards and small letters are the suit i.e. Ts = 10 of Spades)

More Rules and other info: